DeepSeek Deep Dive Part 1: Creating Malware, Including Keyloggers and Ransomware
www.tenable.com
Tenable Research examines DeepSeek R1 and its capability to develop malware, such as a keylogger and ransomware. We found it provides a useful starting point, but requires additional prompting and debugging.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/31583546

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Security researcher Tenable successfully used DeepSeek to create a keylogger that could hide an encrypted log file on disk as well as develop a simple ransomware executable.

At its core, DeepSeek can create the basic structure for malware. However, it is not capable of doing so without additional prompt engineering as well as manual code editing for more advanced features. For instance, DeepSeek struggled with implementing process hiding. “We got the DLL injection code it had generated working, but it required lots of manual intervention,” Tenable writes in its report.

“Nonetheless, DeepSeek provides a useful compilation of techniques and search terms that can help someone with no prior experience in writing malicious code the ability to quickly familiarize themselves with the relevant concepts.”

“Based on this analysis, we believe that DeepSeek is likely to fuel further development of malicious AI-generated code by cybercriminals in the near future.”